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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - As the Mountaineers get ready to begin the second half of Big 12 Conference play this weekend, they’re in the midst of one of their most successful stretches in recent memory.

WVU baseball enters a series with Kansas holding a 6-6 league record and sitting at No. 20 in the D1Baseball poll, its highest national ranking since 1982.

This week on the WVU Coaches Show, head coach Randy Mazey said his team has already shown that it is capable of creating more history this spring.

“This is a team that’s very capable of having that special season,” said Mazey. “We’ve just got to finish now, and if we finish, I think it could be a turning point in this entire program.”

West Virginia’s recent run in conference play has been remarkable. After losing its first four league games, WVU has won six of eight to get back to .500, winning three consecutive series against nationally ranked opponents.

Mazey credits the team’s veteran players for leading the team through a difficult stretch early in Big 12 play.

“It’s been the senior leadership. The older kids that don’t let the young kids panic when you lose a bad game or get swept at Baylor. A younger team wouldn’t be able to respond to that,” said Mazey. “Guys like Darius Hill and Pudge [Ivan Gonzalez] and those guys have made sure that nobody’s panicked. We just go out and do what we do, and keep working in practice everyday, and that’s how we’ve been able to sustain it to this point.”

Now the team’s focus is continuing to sustain that success, a process that begins when the Mountaineers play for another series victory — or maybe even a sweep — against the Jayhawks.

“We’ve got to play well down the stretch and hopefully finish toward the top of this league and end up in the postseason,” said Mazey. “Once you get in the postseason, anything can happen. It’s just the right team getting hot at the right time.”

The No. 20 Mountaineers open their three-game series with Kansas Friday at 6:30 p.m. On a new episode of the WVU Coaches Show, co-hosts Anjelica Trinone and Nick Farrell will preview the matchup with Mazey, look back at another successful weekend for WVU baseball and relive Neal Brown’s first Gold-Blue Game as the leader of Mountaineer football.

This new edition of the WVU Coaches Show debuts Friday at 5 p.m. on AT&T SportsNet, and then airs again Saturday morning on the following stations in West Virginia:

WBOY (Channel 12 — Clarksburg)

WOWK (Channel 13 — Charleston/Huntington)

WTRF (Channel 7 — Wheeling/Steubenville)

WVNS (Channel 59 — Beckley/Bluefield)

Check your local listings for more details on how to watch the WVU Coaches Show.